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00:04Welcome to another edition of Who's Number One, I'm Trey Winko.
00:08Let's face it, fight night, electric.
00:10Unlike any other night in sports, you can smell bloodlust in the air,
00:14the adrenaline, the anticipation, the sweat.
00:17And if you're lucky, it lives up to all the hype
00:20and reminds us why boxing is indeed called the sweet science.
00:23Look, there have been thousands of forgettable fights,
00:26but a handful, a handful of great ones.
00:29To that end, ESPN Classic has ranked the 20 best...
00:36On September 22, 1927, Chicago's Soldier Field was overflowing with more than 100,000 fans
00:44for the rematch between heavyweight champ Gene Tunney and...
00:46Ooh, it might not be high enough. Tunney Dempsey?
00:50...the man whose title he had taken, the legendary Jack Dempsey.
00:53Special trains coming from both coasts, day and night,
00:57In the days leading up to the fight, Irving Berlin, George M. Cohan,
01:01and everybody else that had a name in America was sitting 10 or 15 rows back at that fight.
01:06Tunney was at his peak. Tunney had been doing a lot of fighting.
01:08He was ready. He was in fine shape. He was tuned. And he wasn't afraid.
01:12Tunney was a very brave man. He knew what he was doing in the ring.
01:16Dempsey was a tremendous puncher. Tremendous finisher. Good hand speed too.
01:20Tunney is down from the front, right, left, and right.
01:25The referee kept waving.
01:27That's all he had at that point in his career because he took three years off.
01:31He didn't have his footwork. He didn't have his head movement that he had earlier.
01:37He had him to move over. And when he finally did, time on the timekeeper's clock was five seconds.
01:44The rules had been changed before this bout, requiring the man who scored the knockdown to retreat to a neutral
01:49corner.
01:50Before that, a fighter could remain coiled and ready to pounce.
01:53You could stand right over him, you know, like a street fight waiting for him to get up.
01:57Dempsey didn't become the Manasseh Mahler for being a genteel guy in the boxing ring.
02:01Once he dropped Tunney, I just think he completely forgot.
02:04Instead of starting on six, he started on one, two.
02:09I've seen that movie hundreds of times. He was knocked out.
02:13If you've ever been knocked out, you can come out of it like that.
02:17And it was four seconds that he needed to come out of it.
02:24A resilient Tunney recuperated between rounds and then boxed his way to another ten-round unanimous decision.
02:36They didn't mention that Dempsey got completely robbed by a crooked ref.
02:43As soon as Dempsey went down on one knee, the ref started counting before sending Tunney to a neutral corner.
02:50So he wouldn't count for Dempsey, but he would count for Tunney.
02:5419-22.
02:57LaMotta was the first guy to beat Ray Robinson.
02:59And, you know, Ray Robinson never forgave him. Obviously, he just kept beating him up after that.
03:04On February 14, 1951 in Chicago, in a middleweight title fight that became known as Boxing St. Valentine's Day Massacre,
03:13old adversaries Sugar Ray Robinson and Jake LaMotta fought for the sixth and final time.
03:18Robinson won for the fifth time, but he still couldn't knock down the defiant raging bull.
03:25Robinson knew that LaMotta was having trouble making weight, and his strategy going into the fight was to make LaMotta
03:31work, to tire himself out in the early rounds.
03:35Every time the referee breaks him, he backs off so far that Jake has to waddle after him.
03:41All he's gonna do is take the legs out from under Jake.
03:44By the tenth round, LaMotta was out of gas. LaMotta makes a last desperate stand.
03:50He bowls Robinson into a corner. He throws everything he's got at Robinson.
03:55And then, Robinson comes out of the corner blazing, and the fight turns right there.
04:01He threw a left hook, right hand, left hook.
04:03He threw everything on him.
04:04At this moment, a tired battler, a chomping block.
04:07The referee stopped the fight in the 13th round while I was still on my feet, with Robinson pounding me
04:12up against the ropes.
04:13If the referee held up another 30 seconds, Robinson would have collapsed from hitting me.
04:19Jake never went down, and he was very proud of that.
04:22Jake LaMotta was against the ropes, and if you see Jake, he's like this, and he's like that in the
04:26ropes.
04:26I mean, he was beat up.
04:27And that's one of my favorite scenes from the movie Raging Boy.
04:30He's like, come put me down, mate.
04:31Come back, we down.
04:36You need a great storyline to start with to have a great fight in the end.
04:41George Foreman was a bully and a villain. He was also heavyweight champ when he faced 7-1 underdog Muhammad
04:51Ali.
04:51He shot Ali in Kinshasa, Zaire on October 30th, 1974, in a fight that went down as the rumble in
04:58the jungle.
05:00We got off the plane, they were saying Ali Boumaier, Ali kill him.
05:04Ali's greatest hour.
05:06First round, Ali goes up on his toe. Bang! Hits him with that first shot.
05:11Now, what does Foreman do? Cuts the ring off. Ali goes back on the ropes.
05:15The whole time we were there, all we did was have sparring partners pressuring him to the rope so he
05:20could spin this way, spin that way.
05:21I hit him hard in the side. I mean, I got a good shot. And he said, is that all
05:27you got, George? And I remember thinking, yep, that's about it.
05:31It was a huge, brilliant gamble, but one that could have backfired on him very easily.
05:42That's it! The greatest thought of Muhammad Ali!
05:46That's it! The greatest thought of Muhammad Ali!
05:46That's right! Take care of yourself!
05:48When Ali knocked him down and knocked him out, he said it was the hardest he had ever been hit.
05:5717. 17. 17. 17.
06:00Most important sporting event of the 20th century by far.
06:06Even non-sports fans were glued to the radio.
06:11On June 22nd, 1938...
06:13Ooh, it was smelly.
06:16I don't even know if it belongs on the list besides its importance because it was only a one-round
06:23fight.
06:24It wasn't even a contest. I like competitive fights if you're talking about greatest fights.
06:31Two years after Germany's Max Schmeling had scored a 12th-round knockout of Joe Lewis,
06:36more than 70,000 crammed into Yankee Stadium for the rematch.
06:40It was a fight for Lewis' heavyweight championship and for so much more.
06:46No fighter, in my opinion, has ever had the pressure that those two guys had on them that night.
06:50Because it was not a boxing match. It was a fight about the two ways the world was going to
06:55go.
06:55Lewis measured him right to the body, a left up to the jaw, and Schmeling is down!
07:00It's not like Lewis won in a great back-and-forth action fight.
07:03He found redemption. It's that...
07:05No, I understand you have your theories about Aryan supremacy, but let's talk about American supremacy.
07:11Black, white, whatever. It was the good guys.
07:15I'm not saying Schmeling was a bad guy, but he clearly represented the bad guys.
07:19Not just the bad guys, but the worst who ever lived.
07:23He's going in to fight a guy who not, who destroyed him when they, for the first time they fought.
07:27It was Joe Lewis' greatest, greatest hour.
07:30No fighter could have rushed at his play faster than Joe Lewis won after the young Boston match daily.
07:36The mismatch ended after just two minutes, four seconds of the first round.
07:41He gave that German such a shellacking, put him in the hospital for a week.
07:48He broke vertebrae in his back. I'm surprised he was only in the hospital a week.
07:54Sixth, sixth, sixth.
07:57Four blood-spattered times the two Tigers fought each other,
08:00Willie Pep and Sandy Sadler, for the featherweight title.
08:03Their most memorable was number two on February 11, 1949, in Madison Square Garden.
08:10Brutal as usual, and Pep's only win in the series, a unanimous 15-round decision.
08:16If you want to take a kid...
08:18I'd like to say that Pep made Sandy Sadler fall around his face and ride onto the ropes.
08:24It's the only time Sadler had trouble hitting somebody, even Pep.
08:29Teach him how to violate every rule of boxing.
08:32You want to watch the second Pep's Sadler fight.
08:35They need each other, and they hit low, and they hit high.
08:39It was the greatest piece of boxing I've ever seen on the part of Willie Pep.
08:46He was fighting a man, Sandy Sadler, who was very dirty, and he knew all the tricks.
08:51And not only was he fighting him, and boxing him, and outboxing him, and doing all his beautiful tricks.
08:58He was an artist in the ring. But he was doing it with one eye closed.
09:04Sadler was a freak in the featherweight division.
09:07You know, just a huge guy in a huge bunch of really the wisp.
09:10You know, he really couldn't break an egg, but he could box your ears off.
09:14And he really knew how to be the boss in that ring.
09:17He really used every inch of that ring when he had to.
09:21The fight that should go down in history is something we should pay attention to.
09:31I'd look across at Evander Holyfield, and I'd feel sorry for his opponent.
09:35Not that his opponent was necessarily going to lose, but he would find out about you.
09:40He was going to take you to hell.
09:42On November 13, 1992, in Las Vegas, Riddick Bowe and Evander Holyfield, each undefeated, descended into Fistic Hades to determine
09:56the heavyweight title.
09:58Bowe, the 9-5 underdog, decked the champ in the 11th while pounding out a one-sided, 12-round unanimous
10:03decision.
10:04Riddick Bowe was a terrific boxer, big man, great boxing skill.
10:11Here were two really tough guys.
10:14Bowe had Holyfield reeling across the ring, going back and forth.
10:17Holyfield was out on his feet.
10:18And then Bowe got tired, and Holyfield came back and started throwing hooks and uppercuts.
10:23And bam, bam, bam!
10:27Riddick Bowe, we knew he was a good specimen.
10:29A new prototypical heavyweight, the great Eddie Fudge with him.
10:32A lot of people didn't think he had the most important thing, the heart, to overcome a tough fight.
10:38And who's he fighting? A warrior.
10:39What did he do right in front of you?
10:40He became all the things that people thought maybe he could be if he was really going to put it
10:45together and be that man.
10:46They brought the dog out in each other.
10:48I mean, they came to just do their business.
10:50For the winner by a unanimous decision and new heavyweight champion of the world, Riddick.
10:59People, somehow Rick Bowe gets lost in that era of Tyson, Holyfield, Lewis.
11:05He was right on their level.
11:10He was.
11:11He was.
11:13He was.
11:20He was.
11:2314.
11:2414.
11:2625.
11:2815.
11:29Leonard is the same of the fight.
11:31Which, uh, which Leonard Hearns fight is this?
11:34Two?
11:35Three.
11:37Sugar Ray Leonard could dance on the ceiling.
11:39Thomas Hearns punched like thunder.
11:41On September 16th, 1981, in Las Vegas, they met to unify the welterweight title.
11:47It was billed as superfighter, and it was.
11:51I didn't think my brother was going to beat no Tommy Hearns.
11:536'1", long reach.
11:55I was very shocked because I never saw him hurt.
11:57Instead of the hitman, then Thomas Hearns became the boxer, and Ray Leonard became the hunter.
12:02Hearns in trouble, no question about it, and Sugar senses it.
12:06Hearns wasn't beating people.
12:09He was knocking them half dead, senseless.
12:11Bang, and guys are falling like trees.
12:14So as a little kid, I remember feeling scared for Ray Leonard going in, because you identify.
12:18You're in the ring with Tommy Hearns.
12:19He's 6'2", 78-inch reach, not much shorter than Larry Holmes' reach or Muhammad Ali's reach.
12:24He's a welterweight.
12:26He can hit you from across the ring.
12:27Tommy Hearns' chin wasn't as good as Leonard.
12:29And so Tommy was outside, bah, bah, bah, throwing your right hand, just tagging Leonard, tagging Leonard, tagging Leonard.
12:38Tommy Hearns was a banger, banger, you know.
12:40You kept your chin in front, you weren't in front of deep trouble.
12:43The quickness of Ray overcame the strength of Hearns, because Hearns had, he was a whacker, a good whacker.
12:50Trailing after 12 rounds, Leonard knocked down Hearns twice in the 13th and finished him off in the next round.
12:55That's it.
12:57Chaka Ray Leonard has won by a technical knockout.
13:0313-13.
13:06On September 23, 1952, in Philadelphia, unbeaten Rocky Marciano.
13:14Greatest knockout punch ever.
13:16Marciano went after the heavyweight title of Jersey Joe Walker, who was told at every turn that he had no
13:22chance.
13:24Rock would take two to throw one, and he always counted on his power.
13:27He always had faith in his power, and his power prevailed.
13:30Marciano.
13:31Clearly a club on Jersey Joe Walker because of Jersey Joe's artistic ring talent.
13:38Two of them came out making moves, and all of a sudden, Walker cut through that hook, and down went
13:42Rocky on his hands and knees.
13:45Down from a left hook.
13:47A lot of fighters, when they get knocked down and cut the first time, fall apart emotionally.
13:53Marciano got tougher.
13:55I was talking to Rocky after the fight, and I says, could you see the guy at all?
14:02He says, snap for three or four rounds.
14:04All I could see was a shadow.
14:06In the twelfth round, Walcott gave Marciano such a beating, and I didn't think Rocky would be able to come
14:14out for the thirteenth round.
14:16Marciano was behind on all three scorecards.
14:18He maneuvered Walcott to the ropes in the thirteenth round.
14:21I was hollering, lollapalooza rock, lollapalooza.
14:25And then, all of a sudden, bang.
14:28It fell flat in his face.
14:29How'd have killed him?
14:30People in the audience were just amazed.
14:33Marciano had his own little genius that I think made him special.
14:37He started the left hand, just started, just to take the eye of Walcott off his right hand.
14:42Just started, bang, and he shot the right hand.
14:45And he nailed a great fighter, Walcott, but he had to with that power, with that Suzy Q.
14:56Larry Holmes and WBC champ Ken Norton were regarded as something of lightweights when, on June 9, 1978, in Las
15:03Vegas, they met for the heavyweight title.
15:05They delivered a fearsome fifteen-round performance that enhanced the reputations of both and was decided by a split decision.
15:13You didn't know who won it.
15:16People, people really didn't know anything about Holmes before then.
15:21And Holmes wasn't really on the scene like that.
15:25At the end, it was fierce.
15:29This was the first time we got a chance to see how tough Larry Holmes was.
15:35They could have fought the last round.
15:37Two exhausted guys who had given everything in a phone booth.
15:40And there'd have been no glass left in that booth, I'll tell you that much.
15:43I mean, those guys were really fighting.
15:45That's a great fight.
15:47Unfortunately, people sometimes do not give it the respect and the attention that it deserves.
15:53And that those two fighters deserve because of what they put into that fight.
15:57First of all, one of the last fifteen-round fights.
15:59Both guys knew that what that fifteenth round was going to represent.
16:04They understood it, came down to that, and they gave everything.
16:08Larry Holmes had to win the last round to win the fight.
16:11And actually, Norton won the last round, and Holmes just won the last fifteen seconds.
16:15And they gave it to Holmes, which gave him the title.
16:20Eleven, eleven, eleven.
16:23On January 24th, 1976, after losing the Rumble in the Jungle fifteen months earlier,
16:29George Foreman returned to the ring in Las Vegas.
16:32Okay, that's a good pick.
16:35He brought his sledgehammer fist with him.
16:38So did his opponent, Ron Lyle.
16:40Two locomotives collided head-on.
16:42Foreman was knocked down twice, but hammered out a fifth-round KO.
16:46It's one thing to see a guy go down, get up and fight on.
16:48It's another thing to see a guy go down, get up and fight on and win.
16:51When you were a kid, yo-yo was your toy.
16:54You want to see this fight, down, up, down, up.
16:57Ron Lyle was this chiseled, tough guy.
17:01George Foreman's a monster.
17:02Six foot four, you know, at the time then he was like 225, pure muscle ripped.
17:07It was two lumberjacks just, you know, chopping each other down.
17:11It hurt to watch.
17:12Lyle was a here-I-am fighter.
17:15George was a here-I-am fighter.
17:17They could have held the thing in a phone booth.
17:19That's all the room they needed.
17:21I would say that George was a mauler.
17:23He depended on his brute strength with both hands
17:28to take his opponent down as fast as he could.
17:32Both fighters, Foreman and Lyle, were on the deck in that fight
17:35in a way that made you think, the fight's over.
17:38I remember it being called the Elephator fight
17:40because they were up and down.
17:42I mean, they were just up and down so much, both guys.
17:49I remember watching it on tape and just thinking,
17:52oh my God, it's an all-time beatdown by both fighters.
17:57Carmen Basilio could take a punch.
17:59Boy, could he take a punch.
18:02On June 10, 1955...
18:05Is this Basilio DeMarco?
18:07Is this Basilio DeMarco?
18:10Basilio took scores of punches from welterweight champ Tony DeMarco.
18:14In the 10th round, Basilio began to give what he had been receiving,
18:17scoring two knockdowns and then a 12th round TKO.
18:22To become Basilio, you had to hit him with a plank.
18:26This guy, this guy was great.
18:31DeMarco, he had one advantage physically over Basilio.
18:35He could punch like hell.
18:38Tony DeMarco hit me in the chin.
18:40He's the only guy that ever staggered me.
18:42He hit me in the chin with a left hook that I saw coming from a mile away,
18:45and I never made an attempt to put my hand up to block it or anything.
18:49And I staggered like a drunk man for a few seconds.
18:52Somehow he just stopped.
18:53His backside was like inches from the friggin' back.
18:56And he just stopped like he was sitting in a chair.
18:58And he just refused to allow himself to go where gravity was taking him.
19:03And that was the turning point of the fight
19:05because DeMarco had hit him his Sunday punch.
19:08You know how your foot goes to sleep?
19:09You got the little pins and needles?
19:10Well, they were this long.
19:12And the bottom of my foot, my...
19:13Fought a lot of people like a Fulmer, a Robinson, DeMarco, Kid Gavillon.
19:23He didn't go down.
19:25I've ever seen a single time.
19:29Isaac Newton was rolling in his grave after all he did
19:32to discover and prove gravity existed.
19:36And Basilio in the ring denied gravity ever existed,
19:40no matter how many punches he did.
19:43The whole 60-second rest, I just kept stamping my leg to bring it back.
19:48Basilio was a guy that, boy, they should put his face next to tough.
19:52He was a little underrated as far as being clever.
19:54He'd roll his head, do things like that.
19:56Boy, what a shit he had.
19:58I think mentally, not just physically, mentally,
20:01that somehow started to evaporate some things
20:04that were inside the head of Tony DeMarco.
20:07Left and right to the jaw,
20:09and the referee steps in and stops the fight.
20:12DeMarco is out.
20:14A great knockout.
20:15The way the referee is holding up his arm
20:17as he goes right down,
20:20right as he getting punched,
20:21and right as the referee stops the fight.
20:28Alexis Arguello had methodically mowed his way through one division after another.
20:32On November 12, 1982, in Miami's Orange Bowl,
20:35he found Aaron Pryor, the WBA junior welterweight champ,
20:39standing between him and history.
20:43Arguello's won three weight class championships,
20:46and he's moving up for a fourth.
20:48And had Aaron Pryor not been there,
20:51we would be talking about Alexis Arguello
20:53as, you know, a top five pound-for-pound fighter.
20:56Alexis Arguello was this gentleman,
20:59this tall, this statuesque,
21:01he was good-looking,
21:02he had a great jab,
21:04he was a terrific fighter.
21:05Aaron Pryor, on the other hand,
21:06there was a street urchin from Cincinnati,
21:09and he was just one tough fool, as it would be.
21:13How did Aaron Pryor walk through those right hands?
21:16Because Arguello was hitting him with punches,
21:18with right hands that weren't just hitting him.
21:21You ever hear a trainer say,
21:22punch through the target?
21:24He was punching through Pryor's face.
21:28You thought you knew more about Arguello,
21:30he had that classical straight up a little bit,
21:32which could hurt him a little bit,
21:34because you could find him a little bit,
21:35but people loved that classical set.
21:37They felt comfortable with him.
21:38I don't know if he'd be on time.
21:40That's kind of how you felt about Pryor.
21:42I don't know if he's going to be on time.
21:43I don't know if I can rely on him.
21:45He's not something that we feel secure about.
21:47We kept waiting for him not to be reliable.
21:49We kept waiting for Arguello to put the lights out on his party,
21:53to pick, catch him with the right hand,
21:55and say, okay, see?
21:56We told you.
21:57And it never happened.
21:59Pryor, a 2-1 underdog,
22:01dashed Arguello's dreams with a 14th-round knockout.
22:09It's rare to have two undefeated, undisputed heavyweight champions.
22:14On March 8th, 1971, in Madison Square Garden,
22:17in what was billed as the fight of the century,
22:22Muhammad Ali sought to reclaim the heavyweight championship
22:25that had been stripped from him for refusing military induction.
22:28The title was held by the redoubtable Joe Frazier.
22:32Thus began an epic rivalry.
22:35The first Ali-Frazier fight in 1971
22:37was the biggest sports spectacle
22:42since the second Tunney Dempsey fight 44 years earlier.
22:46Frazier was fast and hard and relentless,
22:50and Ali was still a beautiful fighter to watch,
22:54but was a little bigger, a little heavier,
22:57not quite as elusive,
22:58and it was just enough that Frazier could get on him and stay on him.
23:01Ali looked at Frazier as the sellout,
23:05guy that sold out to the white establishment.
23:07For him to be viewed as a white, sucking Uncle Tom kind of guy
23:12was the greatest insult you could give a guy
23:15who was nothing but raging black.
23:17The young Muhammad Ali would have run circles around Joe Frazier,
23:21but it wasn't the young Ali who got...
23:25What?
23:26He was 29.
23:28He was still young.
23:30The ring with John.
23:32My kid blew the 11th round big.
23:34I don't know how to have to stay in your record.
23:36He looked like a ballet dancer, like a pirouette.
23:38He didn't feel that he was fighting only for himself.
23:41He felt that he was fighting for everybody who believed in him.
23:44I remember listening on the radio as a young kid,
23:47and I'm like, what?
23:48He's down?
23:50It was one of those nights that I will always remember,
23:54and when Ali went down,
23:57it was as if I and my generation had taken a punch to the solar plexus.
24:04Ali got up at the count of four in the 15th round,
24:07but Frazier had won the unanimous decision.
24:15On September 27, 1946, in Yankee Stadium,
24:19one of the most ferocious rivalries in sports began.
24:22Rocky Graziano, the 11-5 hometown favorite,
24:25faced off against Tony Zale,
24:27who had won the middleweight title in 1941.
24:30Both were tougher than Gristle.
24:33You had a guy from Gary, Indiana,
24:35Tony Zale,
24:36who they called the man of steel,
24:38and he was.
24:39You know, Graziano was the younger fighter,
24:41the guy coming up.
24:42Graziano's the Italian guy from the end.
24:43I mean, there were just a ton of things
24:45that fit that sort of time and place in America.
24:49These two clashed,
24:51and it was like a neighborhood fistfight on the corner.
24:56You had an irresistible force against an immovable object.
25:00They both went down.
25:02When Zale knocked him down,
25:04Rocky got up and knocked Zale down.
25:06Boom, boom, back, back and forth.
25:08Somebody was going to go.
25:10An almost inhuman amount of punishment
25:12was dished out to one fighter or the other.
25:14After the second round,
25:15Ray Arcel and the handlers of Zale
25:17had to go out and pull him back to his corner.
25:19He was in bad shape.
25:20At the end of the fifth round,
25:22when Zale came back to his corner,
25:24his legs were quivering.
25:26It was a miracle almost
25:28that they could get him onto his feet again
25:30at the end of a minute.
25:31It's just a matter of time
25:32before Rocky Graziano knocks out Zale
25:34and wins the middleweight title.
25:35In the sixth round,
25:37Rocky got hit with a left hook to the body
25:38that the solar plexus in a paralyzed him,
25:40and he went down.
25:41By the time he got up, it was after 10.
25:43He just completely knocked all the wind out of him.
25:45He went home after that fight,
25:47and he was in seclusion for weeks.
25:50Zale's finishing punch was thrown with a broken thumb.
25:53Their six rounds left everyone wanting more.
25:55They would get it.
26:03On July 16, 1947, in Chicago,
26:07Zale and Graziano resumed their brutal rivalry.
26:10This one, like the first, ended in the sixth round.
26:13Unlike the first, this one had a different winner.
26:18The second fight, they knew what it was,
26:20which was a whole night of hell,
26:21and they willingly chose to go there.
26:25Two human beings who were totally committed
26:28to annihilate the opposition.
26:30Zale drives it right to the body,
26:31right to the jaw,
26:32putting Graziano on the ropes again.
26:34Zale Graziano, too,
26:36was actually very similar
26:38to the first fight,
26:39but role reversals.
26:40It's Rocky Graziano
26:42who's getting the tar beaten out of him.
26:44One eye is shut.
26:45The other is bleeding.
26:46Zale actually controlled the early going.
26:48Graziano standing up now,
26:50straight,
26:51bobs and weaves a little bit.
26:52To keep the fight from being stopped,
26:55his trainer,
26:56Whitey Bempstein,
26:57pressed a quarter to the eye
26:58and caused the swelling to leak out.
27:01He came out with murder in us,
27:03one good eye,
27:04and climbed all over Zale
27:06on the ropes,
27:07pounding him.
27:08Graziano unleashed a fury of rights,
27:10knocking Zale down.
27:12More right hands drove Zale to the ropes,
27:14and the referee stopped him.
27:15Rocky Graziano,
27:16he's got, like, fire in his eyes.
27:18Like, I see him, he's like, ah!
27:20And the referee said,
27:22I had to stop Rocky that night
27:24because he would have killed Tony Zale.
27:27Rocky Graziano
27:28was the new middleweight champion of the world.
27:39Never bet against U.S. Steel,
27:40General Motors, and Joe Lewis.
27:42Billy Kahn, a light heavyweight,
27:44tried to cash that bet
27:45on June 18, 1941,
27:47before 60,000 in the polo grounds.
27:50After 12 rounds,
27:51he was doing a good job, too,
27:53until he got reckless.
27:57He was a reckless driver in that ring,
28:00and he crashed into a wall
28:03called Joe Lewis's Left and Right Fists.
28:08After 12 rounds,
28:08he looked like a winner,
28:09and the four-year reign of Joe Lewis
28:11was in dire jeopardy.
28:13Billy Kahn was a very, very good fighter,
28:16a very tough kid from Pittsburgh.
28:19He hit Lewis with a right hand
28:22that made Lewis' legs turn into spaghetti.
28:25Billy Kahn got cocky,
28:27and instead of going for the decision,
28:29he tried to knock Joe Lewis out.
28:31He began to try to slug with Joe Lewis,
28:35and that was a mistake.
28:36Lewis, who's losing the fight,
28:377-4-1 on most scorecards,
28:40nails him in the middle of the ring,
28:42and then puts together
28:44that classic Joe Lewis combination,
28:47head, body, uppercut,
28:48and Kahn is out.
28:50And then Lewis came right back
28:51from the brink of defeat
28:53after Kahn had made his great a fight
28:55as you could possibly imagine.
28:57Only two seconds remained
28:59in the 13th round
29:00when Kahn was counted out.
29:02I guess I had too much to win for tonight,
29:03and I'd try to knock him out.
29:06Otherwise, I don't want easy.
29:10Four.
29:11Four.
29:13Thomas Hearns was called the hitman
29:15for obvious and violent reasons.
29:18Marvelous Marvin Hagler
29:19possessed Wrecking Ball Fist II.
29:21On April 15, 1985,
29:23in Las Vegas,
29:24in an unbridled slugfest,
29:26the two middleweights squared off
29:27for three furious rounds
29:29that seemed like 15.
29:31When the bell rang,
29:32the man across the band
29:33were like two vicious amateurs
29:34just slugging away.
29:36They didn't care.
29:36Caution to the man.
29:37These guys delivered
29:38in a way that you seldom see
29:40in any, in the 15th round of a fight,
29:42let alone in the first round of a fight
29:43when guys feel each other out.
29:44Sometimes it happens
29:46that an athlete shows up
29:48the night of a performance
29:50and he simply ain't got it.
29:52And that's what happened
29:54to Tommy Hearns.
29:55What I noticed
29:56through the end of the second round
29:58was that Tommy Hearns had no legs.
30:02That fight could not have
30:03what the distance
30:04at that pace.
30:05You can't do that.
30:06Tommy Hearns,
30:06he went in there all night
30:08with Marvin Hagler
30:08who had not been knocked out once.
30:10Tommy Hearns threw that right hand
30:12and bam,
30:14right off the chin of Hagler.
30:15Hagler took a step back
30:16and kept coming forward.
30:18Both guys never let up.
30:20They just kept going away.
30:21Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
30:22I mean, hard, vicious shots.
30:26In my opinion,
30:28Hearns messed up.
30:29He showed Hagler too much.
30:30He cut Hagler
30:33and
30:36Hagler knew
30:38right then
30:38he had to get
30:39Hearns out of the way early.
30:42And he just jabbed him.
30:44He could have lasted 10 rounds.
30:47Through a jab,
30:49no one
30:50set the man up.
30:51No one had a proper stance.
30:52They were,
30:52it was a street fight.
30:53I don't think
30:54that either one of us
30:55really thought
30:56we just fought.
30:57I was in a brawl
30:58and we both was,
30:59we both was giving to each other.
31:02The punch that really did
31:03Tommy Hearns in
31:04wasn't kind of a right jab
31:05as one had himself on.
31:07Hearns went down
31:08in the third round,
31:09arose,
31:10but was unable to continue.
31:11Hagler had never
31:12quite gotten his due
31:14as a great champion.
31:16And I think with that knockout,
31:17people realized
31:18this is not just
31:19a middleweight champ.
31:20This is an all-time great.
31:253-3-3.
31:28Once the Archie Moore fight
31:29with Durrell took place,
31:30everybody understood now
31:31a fight is not over
31:32until it's over.
31:33On December 10, 1958,
31:36Archie Moore,
31:36the 40-something
31:37light heavyweight champ,
31:39was sent to the campus
31:40four times
31:41by 3-to-1 underdog
31:42Yvon Durrell.
31:43Somehow,
31:44the old mongoose
31:45kept getting up.
31:46For some reason,
31:48Archie Moore
31:48in that fight
31:50was wide open.
31:52Yvon Durrell
31:53wasn't a great fighter,
31:54but he just
31:56clobbered him
31:56all over the place.
31:57It was cold inside
31:58the arena,
31:59and Archie got a slow
32:01start in the fight,
32:01and Durrell caught him
32:02right away
32:02and knocked him down.
32:05And he's done good
32:07with a right hand
32:08on the draw.
32:105, 6.
32:11Archie shouldn't have
32:12got up,
32:12but his courage
32:13got him up.
32:14Up that line,
32:15but staggering.
32:16He got knocked out
32:17three times
32:17in the first round.
32:18As Archie put it,
32:19it felt like
32:20my head exploded.
32:21Sounds strange,
32:22but one of Durrell's
32:23punches
32:24like woke up
32:25more.
32:27Wait a minute,
32:28he went down
32:28all those times,
32:29but he's up,
32:30and he's not only up,
32:31he's throwing the leather
32:32and whoa,
32:32Durrell's down.
32:3330 seconds left.
32:35Down goes Durrell.
32:372,
32:383,
32:394,
32:405,
32:416,
32:427,
32:448.
32:46Saved by the bell
32:47at the count of eight.
32:48If you were like
32:49a student of
32:50the manly art
32:51of self-defense,
32:51you don't slap
32:52that tape on
32:53and show your students
32:54like this is how
32:54you want to box,
32:56but if you want
32:57to raise a family
32:58of fighters,
32:59you put it on
33:00and you say
33:00this is what
33:00fighters do.
33:01They get knocked
33:01down,
33:02they get up,
33:02and then they
33:03knock you down.
33:04Then the guy,
33:05he gets up
33:05and he comes
33:06with bad intentions.
33:07That's what
33:07a fighter is.
33:08Moore put Durrell
33:09down for good
33:10in the 11.
33:12Eight,
33:13struggling at nine,
33:1410,
33:15he is out.
33:17Man,
33:17oh man,
33:18what a dramatic
33:19turn in this fight.
33:23Two,
33:24two,
33:24two,
33:24two.
33:26Two fighters
33:27who are dominant
33:28fighters,
33:29if they decline
33:31at a similar pace,
33:33make a great fight.
33:35On October 1st,
33:361970,
33:36Frasier 3.
33:39What beat it?
33:42I can't think
33:43of anything else.
33:44What beat it?
33:45In 1975,
33:46Muhammad Ali
33:46and Joe Frasier
33:47completed their
33:48three-part
33:4841-round epic.
33:50This one,
33:51overlaid with
33:52undisguised hatred,
33:53lasted 14 savage rounds.
33:59Frasier and Ali
34:00meet in Manila
34:01in 1975.
34:02Ali has given
34:04all of himself
34:05the year before
34:06in Zaire.
34:08Frasier was really
34:09perceived as a
34:10shot fighter.
34:11He was done.
34:11Muhammad Ali's idea
34:12going into that fight
34:13is that Frasier's
34:14a slow starter.
34:15Let me jump right on him
34:16and get him out early.
34:17Frasier and Manila
34:18was a tremendous fight.
34:22Well, let's not
34:23call it a fight.
34:23Let's call it a war.
34:26They were fighting
34:27for the heavyweight
34:27championship of each other.
34:29The first part,
34:30Ali is just
34:31whipping on Frasier.
34:33Somehow,
34:33in the middle rounds,
34:35Frasier comes through.
34:36Frasier starts wailing.
34:38He cuts off the ring.
34:39He gets him on the ropes.
34:40He was killing Ali.
34:44Ali tried to regain
34:45the psychological edge
34:46by looking at him
34:47and saying,
34:48Joe Frasier,
34:49he told me
34:49you were washed up.
34:51And Frasier said,
34:52they told you wrong,
34:53pretty boy.
34:56There was a real sense
34:57by the end
34:57of the 10th round,
34:58Frasier is going
34:59to beat Ali.
35:00Closest to life
35:01and death I've ever seen.
35:02To equally match fighters.
35:04An intense,
35:05competitive edge
35:06on each other,
35:06if not dislike,
35:07actual hatred,
35:08if you will.
35:09I never saw
35:10Joe Frasier
35:11take so many punches.
35:14Ali got tired
35:15of hitting him.
35:16It looked like Ali
35:17was going to have
35:17to quit in a corner.
35:18He said,
35:19I feel like I'm dying.
35:20This must be
35:21what death feels like.
35:22At the bell
35:23ending the 14th,
35:24Ali knocked out
35:25Frasier's mouthpiece.
35:26Frasier's eyes
35:27were almost
35:27completely shut.
35:29Joe came back
35:29to the corner
35:30and I said,
35:31it's all over, Joe.
35:32I said,
35:33I can use your lies.
35:34Don't worry about it.
35:35He said, no.
35:36So I said,
35:37okay.
35:39Shut it down.
35:40It's all over!
36:00It's a tribute to both fighters
36:01that they put themselves
36:02through that.
36:03When two old warriors
36:05are going at it,
36:05there's more damage
36:06being inflicted
36:07and they inflicted
36:08a lot of damage
36:09on each other
36:09that night.
36:11Gene Tunney,
36:12Jack Dempsey,
36:13the long count.
36:15Sugar Ray Robinson,
36:17Jake LaMotta,
36:17number six.
36:18Bell and the judges
36:19have made their decision.
36:21Here's number one.
36:26One.
36:28One.
36:28One.
36:29One.
36:30On September 14th, 1923,
36:32in the polo grounds,
36:34Jack Dempsey found himself
36:35on one knee
36:36before the echo
36:36of the first bell faded.
36:38The heavyweight champ
36:39was knocked down
36:39by Luis Firpo.
36:40Dempsey responded
36:41by decking the Argentine
36:43challenger seven times.
36:45Firpo responded
36:46by knocking Dempsey
36:47out of the ring.
36:50This was the stuff of legend,
36:51the million dollar game.
36:53I think it's a little
36:56overrated
36:56as a fight.
36:58I mean,
37:01it was just
37:01throwing and
37:02slugging stuff
37:03and getting in
37:04a bar fight.
37:05I like more,
37:06you know,
37:07technical stuff.
37:10Even,
37:10even Dempsey Willard
37:12had more technical
37:13boxing.
37:16Back when
37:17a million dollars
37:18was a million dollars.
37:21Dempsey was
37:21at the height
37:22of his powers
37:23at that point
37:23and,
37:24you know,
37:25Firpo was the wild bull
37:26and the Pampas
37:26and,
37:27you know,
37:27people had sort of
37:28heard of him,
37:28but you didn't.
37:29Who's going to knock down
37:30Jack Dempsey?
37:31Firpo was 220 pounds.
37:32Back then,
37:33it was considered a giant.
37:34Dempsey's got 190 pounds.
37:35In its day,
37:36it was probably
37:37the most dramatic fight
37:39considering the scale
37:40and, you know,
37:41what was on the line
37:41and then the actual action.
37:43It shifts the momentum
37:44and controversy.
37:45Firpo got up.
37:46He's a very clumsy
37:48ox of a man.
37:50He's went
37:51like this
37:51like a washerwoman.
37:53Dempsey was
37:53baiting him up
37:54but then Firpo landed
37:55a punch
37:55and knocked Dempsey
37:56right through the ropes.
37:58Now the champion's
38:00in desperate trouble.
38:00See Dempsey
38:01outside the ring
38:02being held back
38:03in the ring,
38:04pushed back in
38:04by the sports writers.
38:06He always gave them
38:07for saving him
38:09in the fight.
38:10There was great courage.
38:12You know,
38:13when you get knocked
38:13through the ropes,
38:13it's pretty easy
38:14to say,
38:14well,
38:14not my knight.
38:15Tremendous fight
38:16and that made Dempsey
38:17a boxing immortal.
38:19Dempsey registered
38:20two more knockdowns
38:21in the second,
38:21the last one
38:22ending the fight.
38:23The final tally,
38:2411 knockdowns
38:26in less than four minutes.
38:27Jack Dempsey,
38:28of course,
38:29became an icon.
38:31The word we use,
38:32he's an iconic figure.
38:33Became an icon
38:34of what was then
38:35part of the jazz age.
38:37Ultimately,
38:38what makes it
38:39a great fight
38:39is that
38:40the right guy won,
38:41by which I mean
38:42Dempsey proved
38:43his greatness.
38:45I'm still Jack Dempsey
38:46in here tonight.
38:48Heavy hands,
38:49quick feet,
38:50the heart of a...
38:51Which leads us,
38:52naturally,
38:53to our second guessers,
38:54brawling
38:55Burt Randolph Sugar
38:56and nasty
38:57Nick Acachella
38:58and their opinion
38:59of the list.
39:00Gentlemen,
39:00be kind.
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